Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/155

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus both sons are to be put to death, but this does not seem necessarily to be the purport of the illustration.

The text of the dialogue accompanying the drawing reads as follows:

Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution

Tam: Stay Romane bretheren gratious Conquerors

Victorious Titus rue the teares I shed

A mothers teares in passion of her sonnes

And if thy sonnes were ever deare to thee

Oh thinke my sonnes to bee as deare to mee

Suffizeth not that wee are brought to Roome

To beautify thy triumphes and returne

Captiue to thee and to thy Romane yoake

But must my sonnes be slaughtered in the streetes

for valiant doinges in there Cuntryes cause

Oh if to fight for kinge and Common weale

Were piety in thine it is in these

Andronicus staine not thy tombe with blood

Wilt thou drawe neere the nature of the Godes

Drawe neere them then in being mercifull

Sweete mercy is nobilityes true badge

Thrice noble Titus spare my first borne sonne

Titus: Patient your self madame for dy hee must

Aaron do you likewise prepare your selfe

And now at last repent your wicked life

Aron: Ah now I curse the day and yet I thinke

few comes within the compasse of my curse

Wherein I did not some notorious ill

As kill a man or els devise his death

Ravish a mayd or plott the way to do it

Acuse some innocent and forsweare my selfe

Set deadly enmity betweene too freendes

Make poore mens cattell breake theire neckes

Set fire on barnes and haystackes in the night

And bid the owners quench them with their teares